Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5309915" data-attributes="member: 15538">My point is that if I need to stat a squad of Japanese warriors, I shouldn't find myself going, "Well, I guess I know what they're spending one of their feats on." Whatever characteristics a "D&D katana" might have, I'm going to say that it should be something Japanese warriors are going to be proficient in. Katana would pretty much have mostly have the same game stats. A smaller weapon is probably a wakizashi. A larger, curved weapon (a bastard sword o "bastard scimitar", if you will) is a tachi and is associated with much earlier periods of Japanese history. A two-hander (daikatana, in modern terminology, what Musashi called a "very long sword") is indistinguishable in general characteristics from other anti-cavalry greatswords. The idea of a katana as a "superior weapon" is just odd. To the Japanese, it held the same position and functionality as a sword or sabre did to an Englishman. It's not in any way extraordinary to wield as a sword. They are not especially heavy; on the contrary, they tend to be well under three feet long and almost universally under three pounds in weight. Apart from being a little bottom heavy, there's little about them that is challenging as a weapon. I don't consider it a historical issue; anyone could walk into a knife shop and examine something resembling a katana to get the feel for it. It's one thing for a D&D writer to know less about swords than a reenactivist; it's another to know less than any person who has ever held a katana of any quality for even a few moments.</blockquote>

Verification